


Dreams in Silver

by AkinoAme



Category: Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Loss, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 09:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1545965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkinoAme/pseuds/AkinoAme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth is not Andrasia, and Orion is trying to bridge the gap between the world he lost and the one he's found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams in Silver

                The fruits of this world don't taste the same as those of home. They're too sweet or too bitter or too sour or too watery. Still, he blends them together with "froyo"—whatever _that_ is supposed to be; he only knows that it's cold, sweet, and tangy—and serves them to customers and friends.

                Ernie lets him have some "on the house," an expression he's learned means "for free." The old man doesn't know that he's from another planet—only that he's been down on his luck and homeless "since the Invasion," and that was all he needed to say. It's true, to an extent: He has been homeless since the Invasion, but _which_ Invasion is the only difference. Ernie makes sure he's got a steady job, a roof over his head, and food—including froyo. He learns it's an acquired taste, and he's getting used to it, when he has a break to eat with the other Rangers.

                Still, he misses large meals with his family—the familiar foods and people of home. The Rangers try to help him when they can, with Emma asking about the plants and animals of Andrasia and Gia trying to match spices to the flavors he remembers. With their help, he manages to make something close to what his family would have made, but the taste is off, and the Rangers don't care for Andrasian cooking much more than he cares for certain Earth dishes. But if he closes his eyes, he can just pretend that he's ruined a meal for his friends and family—with Emma, Troy, and Noah as the friends too polite to admit they hated it, Jake as the bluntly honest sibling, and Gia as yet another sibling telling him to be nice.

                He's taught himself English, both reading and writing. When he has time, he translates the books his friends share with him into Andrasian, working his way from easier fiction to older, denser classics. It doesn't make up for failing to preserve the great Andrasian novels, but it lets him share what he can. As far as Ernie knows, he's simply translating things into the native language of his family's long wiped-out village in another country. This, too, is close enough to the truth.

                Tensou is the only one who speaks Andrasian, and sometimes when he has free time and the others aren't needed at the Command Center, he just sits there and talks to the little robot for hours. It's the only way he ever hears his native tongue and remembers that it existed in more than just his dreams, and he has to do everything possible to keep it alive. But he was a poor miner, not a rich scholar, so he can't preserve as much of his culture as he wishes he could—there are songs and stories that will be lost forever.

                The ones he remembers, he tries to translate into English, but some words and meanings are lost. But the one he can get a decent translation out of is the one he's heard repeated in his dreams ever since he found the morpher. It's about the Crimson Pirates, space explorers from thousands of years ago who sailed the stars to find the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. They banded together across the galaxy from survivors of worlds destroyed by the darkness, the same darkness trying to reach the Greatest Treasure before them, and thus they had an excuse to fight against it. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was what they _wanted_ to do. They finally found the Greatest Treasure buried within the stones of Andrasia and unlocked it, spreading the light across the universe and dispelling the darkness.

                Gosei says there is a similar version of this tale from Eltar, home planet of his late teacher. As his teacher told it, the keys unlocked the power, but the only way it could dispel the darkness was for the brave captain of the Crimson Pirates to sacrifice his life to spread it across the universe and beyond. The Greatest Treasure became the Morphing Grid, and artifacts such as coins, crowns, and lights were only a fraction of the Great Power, with the Ranger Keys being its purest, most complete form. The remaining fleet leaders became the first Power Rangers, and their descendents colonized Eltar, KO-35, Mirinoi, and Andrasia.

                It's no surprise to hear that Gosei's teacher sacrificed himself in the last great invasion—one across the universe that happened when Orion was too young to remember, but his parents would speak of the horrors with pain in their eyes—pain he realizes must be in his eyes when he recounts his lost world. Eltar was devastated in that same invasion—Gosei shares a tale shared between a dying world and a dead one. Orion wonders if he should share this story with Earth, or will it simply curse this planet to the same fate?

                He will never regain his homeworld, his friends, his family, or his culture. But he'll do what he can to keep what little he can alive, awash in the waves of the new planet he's sailed himself to. Slowly, he will find a place on Earth, but a part of his heart will always remain with Andrasia.

                He closes his eyes and dreams of home.


End file.
